Ophthalmic Photography
Ophthalmic Photography
The Harry & Margaret Towsley Ophthalmic Photography Department at the U-M Kellogg Eye Center offers a variety of services for eye diagnostics. When your physician orders photography, a technician will walk you to our service and you will check in at our main desk. Then, you may have images taken on one of several cameras. Some cameras capture images of the external features of your eye, and some capture the inside of your eye.
Techniques
External Imaging Techniques
External photos are images of your face, eyelids, and cornea. They are taken for a variety of diseases such as infections, corneal dystrophies, and Graves' eye disease.
External high resolution images are captured using one of the following:
- Standard digital camera - A basic 35mm digital camera may be used to document patients diagnosed with an external eye condition or disorder. Among them: droopy eyelids, Graves’ eye disease, proptosis (when an eyeball protrudes) and skin cancer in or around the eye.
- Slit lamp biomicroscope - The same tool your ophthalmologist uses to examine your eye. It uses a narrow beam of light and magnifies the view of the front of the eye. This tool documents corneal diseases, cataracts and ocular tumors.
Internal Imaging Techniques
For other conditions, we will need to capture images of the inside of the eye.
- Fundus photography - A digital camera attached to a low-powered microscope gives a close-up view of the retina, optic nerve and macula. It can also help ophthalmologists monitor changes in a patient’s retina over time — and spot warning signs such as leaky hemorrhages caused by diabetic retinopathyand macular degeneration.
- Optical coherence tomography (OCT) - This technology involves a low-powered laser that goes through the pupil to measure thickness in the back of the eye — crucial for determining progression of and treatment for a variety of disorders. OCT produces images of the different layers of the retina, choroid, and optic nerve. These images will help your physician detect diseases such as macular degeneration, diabetic retinopathy, glaucoma, and optic neuritis, and glaucoma.
- Fluorescein angiography - Also using a fundus camera, this diagnostic test requires a patient receive an injection of fluorescein dye in his or her arm just like when blood is drawn. The dye travels through the body to the eye’s blood vessels in about 15 seconds — and the resulting contrast allows doctors to more clearly notice signs of diabetic retinopathy, vein and artery occlusion, edema and tumors.
News & Stories
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